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If you want to port the Ubuntu for Phones & Tablets to other devices than those currently supported, be sure to check out our Porting guide.

The following sections describe how to the code and infrastructure for Ubuntu for Phones & Tablets is currently published and used.

Code overview

The Touch Developer Preview is currently built from Ubuntu Utopic combined with some modified and new packages and some Android components to enable specific devices. In the past we have promoted developer images to be 'stable' in sync with Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) and 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). We no longer support those images, but instead encourage developers and users to use an up to date image based on 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn).

Source code

Ubuntu for Phones & Tablets currently consists of a collection of open source projects in Launchpad and an Android layer.

Ubuntu code

New software and packages are developed in using the Bazaar distributed version control system, in various Launchpad sub-projects from the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview project group. The Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview project group provides a list of those projects used to build the preview. From there you can easily find the code and everything else.

To hack on these system apps, you can pick the one you're interested in from the list, check out the code using Bazaar and submit a merge proposal in Launchpad.

Android layer

You can find all the needed Android code on the Android layer's public git repositories. This is essentially a mirror of the CyanogenMod 10.1, but containing only the needed low level services used by Android (e.g. no Dalvik at all).

For any Android related project at our git server, you'll find a branch named phablet-10.1. This branch contains a static known git HEAD and the required changes needed for Ubuntu, including our custom Android manifest.

A porting guide for adapting this layer to other devices can be found at Porting guide.

Image building

Building and publishing Ubuntu images

Images are currently built in the Canonical data center, they are utopic-based images. Full builds are published on cdimage.ubuntu.com.

The images are built from an internal Jenkins instance and are automatically copied to cdimage.ubuntu.com.

How to report bugs

We expect a large amount of feedback and will do our best to go through it!

Please DO NOT file bugs at the "ubuntu-touch-preview" project. This project is no longer monitored, bugs should be filed in the individual affected packages.

The Avengers page contains a tabulated list of packages with handy links for where to file bugs.

Include the steps to reproduce, an automated testcase (if possible) and the frequency of the bug.

Generally, please try to do your best to make sure you put enough information so we can track the hardware and build, for example give "mako #120" in the subject to indicate you're using a Nexus 4 and image #120. You can find out what image you're running in System Settings -> About.

If you want to help out with reporting or triaging bugs, that's great. Ask on IRC or the mailing list if you're unsure. We've got to work all together on this to make Ubuntu for Phones & Tablets truly rock!

Where to discuss

If you got lost somewhere, you found a bug or need some help, we're happy to help you. Ubuntu Touch is put together by a community of many, who are eager to work together with you on this.